


What Can I Say So You Know I Love You?

by ceceliatarleton



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Soul Bond, Soulmarks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, all the angst and all the fluff are what I promise you, and probably much more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 04:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceceliatarleton/pseuds/ceceliatarleton
Summary: In the world of Eos, the words that will make you realize you've fallen in love with your soulmate are etched on your skin by the astrals, which sounds romantic in theory but the chocobros agree soulmarks are more trouble than anything else. A reworking of FFXV with some extra complications.





	What Can I Say So You Know I Love You?

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say? Random idea that wouldn't go away and then went from drabble to short fic to "Actually this is going to be a monster and you should sketch out several chapters ahead. You wanted to write Ardyn-centric stories and Gladnis? Well, funny story..."

Soulmarks are a crock of shit. Ignis said as much two nights before they left Insomnia, displeased curl to his lips and restless tap to his fingers, words a bit too carefully formed, syllables too crisp and slow tumbling out of his mouth to sell the utter dismissal indicated by his tone.

He hadn’t used the word shit, of course, which Noctis thought was a pity. Ignis cursing was a special kind of thrill. Gladio agreed, Noctis knew, even though they hadn’t ever discussed it. The advisor had called the soulmarks balderdash, but the way he’d said the phrase that would have made anyone but Ignis sound like an eighty-year-old great uncle, gave it the same air.

He’d gone onto explain his opinion that the soulmarks were a self-fulfilling prophecy at very best and tripe (another word that had the echoes of something like ‘fuckery’) if you were being less kind. By making the words of the mark the words your soulmate said the moment the full force of your love for them would wash over you, all Shiva was doing was conditioning the marked to believe they were in love--and not just in love (Ignis had  waved a hand to punctuate his point, pointer and middle finger held slightly away from the other digits and a bit curled as if they held some phantom object between them as he let out a slow stream of an exhale from pursed lips between words, and Noctis had wondered, mildly alarmed as the implications sunk in of a secret kept from him, if Ignis was clutching and perhaps craving a cigarette that wasn’t there, as if his advisor would ever indulge in something so unhealthy) but unable to ever think of changing their mind about that love no matter how they or their partner changed or what issues they faced--as soon as they heard a trigger word. Furthermore, it didn’t take away ambiguity or doubt of who you were meant to be with and the difference between infatuation and fulfillment, but added to it in a lot of cases when so many had commonplace phrases as their mark which left them wondering every time they heard them if this was The One.

It made sense Ignis had some strong feelings on that point. His soulmark was “What’s for dinner, Iggy?” in a curve under his right collarbone after all. He didn’t show it off much, but enough people knew the text-- among them two people who already called him Iggy regularly already by the time the mark had settled on him, lacked tact and made up for it in humor, would not to abandon shortening his name, and would ask him almost every day with smirks and innocently mocking lilts that turned the valid question into a daily ribbing what was for dinner even when he wasn’t cooking for them. If Ignis ever gave indication it bothered him, it would have stopped immediately, but other than the occasional roll of eyes, flick to Noctis’s ear, cuff to the back of Gladio’s head, and pointed praise for Prompto who never sunk to joining in, all with an affectionate smile that said that there was no real protest, there was nothing.

Noctis had drifted off for awhile, watching the shapes Iggy’s lips made instead of the words coming out of them and blinking sleepily, his oldest friend’s passion draining him more quickly than it was the man still orating. Words washed over the prince like a bedtime story about how, for all the preaching done about trusting your fate in the markings and the wisdom of the astrals, soulmarks were manipulated constantly. The examples Ignis gave were abstract strangers, but Noctis, when he did tune in, couldn’t help thinking of Prompto trying to trap every girl he talked to into calling him by a pet name so he could say they were destined after “Oh, sweetie” had etched itself onto the top of his foot or of star-eyed girls telling Gladio, “I trust you,” even when the context didn’t fit, eyes trained on his often exposed pectorals and the words that seemed to be coming out of an eagle’s mouth.

Noctis tried to keep his mind drifting lazily then so it wouldn’t flash to the particular soulmark manipulation that had sparked Ignis’s tirade, though it insisted on doing so anyway, undoing hours the prince had spent playing Assassin’s Creed trying to block out being asked to strip naked for witnesses so every inch of his body could be inspected for words that could be passed on to Lady Lunafreya so a speech incorporating them could be written for her to deliver when she and Noctis first appeared in public together as an engaged couple to show the populace they were truly destined and not just a convenient political arrangement. The same had happened to Luna, presumably, though Ignis hadn’t received the report yet so Noctis didn’t know what words he would be obligated to greet her with instead of anything he wanted to say.

It was common practice. Regis had shared with Noctis just last year, finally thinking him old enough or perhaps gently warning him of the possibility of marriage coming up soon, how, when he was Noctis’s age, in a fit of rebellion, he had begged Clarus to take him to the tattoo artist that did the Amicitia tattoos to fake something obscene for his betrothed to be forced to say in front of reporters he had been so mad at the idea of Aulea, who had never met before that point, being fed the words of his soulmate.

Noctis was grateful for any moment he got to share with his father where they could just laugh and swap stories, and it was especially rare that he got his father to talk about his mother, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about that particular information, or if he even could be pleased Regis had shared with him. He knew his parents had loved each other, learned to love each other at least, and deeply. He knew his father still mourned sometimes, but now he also had the implication laid in front of him in flashing lights that Regis had not only been apprehensive of the match at first, he had been sure his wife hadn’t been his astral chosen soulmate. Noctis had wanted desperately to ask what his father’s soulmark was, realizing with the speed and weight of being hit by a truck he’d never seen it or been told it, but he couldn’t bring himself to. The follow up question of if his father had ever heard the words not from his mother, or if he had heard them before he got engaged and that was what had been at the base of his rebellion, that would be too difficult to ask. He could have looked up old articles or watched old new footage of his parents’ engagement and marriage to filter the information through a detached perspective with no follow up, but it had been easier just to put it out of his mind for as long as it worked. Avoidance wasn't the most kingly way to deal with problems, but Noctis figured he had several years yet before he had to worry about acting kingly no matter how hard everyone tried to drill into his head the contrary.

There would be nothing for Noctis’s own heirs to look up on him, unless someone--likely Ignis himself--was charged with passing on a suitably regal and romantic lie. There had been no soulmark to be found on Noctis’s skin. 

 

The prince had known as much, but before that afternoon he’d been able to pretend the mark was nestled in the small of his back or some other place impossible to see without some creative mirror angles. He’d squawked and blushed and told his friends the words were private. Ignis, who hadn’t asked in the first place, had looked at him over the rim of his glasses and volunteered the fact that it was said some people didn’t get their marks until later in life, then brushed it off as just sharing a bit of trivia when Noctis defended that he wasn’t a late bloomer and everyone knew those rumors were bullshit made up by those who didn’t have marks to try and say they weren’t freaks. Gladio and Prompto had both been more persistent, whining about the unfairness as Noctis scoffed that just because he knew theirs didn’t mean he had to return the favor. There had been guessing games (a majority of which turned filthy) and wrestling matches and “accidentally” spilled drinks to try and get him to strip, both never carried beyond the token running joke of attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, with even those subsiding as it sunk in how seriously Noctis took protecting his secret soulmark. There was no secret and no fooling himself or others now. He didn’t have a soulmate. He didn’t belong to anyone, and no matter how much he loved Luna or anyone else they wouldn’t belong to him. 

 

Noctis had worked himself into the wallow he tried his best to avoid as Ignis continued to rip apart soulmarks, soulmates, and the astrals themselves, spots of color high on his cheeks at odds with a still calm and dignified voice and slower pace to speech that measured every word into plausible deniability of any accusation so absurd as that he was raging like a crazy person.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Noctis had finally interrupted, then cringed at how pathetically small and plaintive his voice sounded. “Are you affronted on behalf of my princely dignity that I was strip searched?” he’d bitterly mocked Ignis’s accent with the question, frustration fixating on the only target it could. He didn’t understand why Ignis couldn’t just have left off ages ago when Noctis had still been relaxed and distracting himself with thoughts of master assassins or other innocuous thoughts. “It’s protocol. When have you ever had a problem with protocol, Specs?”

 

“You’d be surprised.” Apologies had followed and uses of his title that made Noctis feel like shit, then Iggy had left, but it was the small voiced first reaction and the flicker of pain in seaglass green eyes that stayed with Noctis through tossing and turning.

 

He’d be  surprised what protocol Ignis hated. 

 

Later that week when they were camping out for the first time on the way to Galdin Quay after their detour to Hammerhead and Noctis was watching Ignis methodically dice peppers at his pop-up prep station while a pot simmered beside him, it was still in the litany of thoughts Noctis tried and failed to avoid obsessing over. 

 

“What’s for dinner..Specs?” Noctis called across the campsite, pause only noticeable if you were listening. Nothing remarkable in that question. Straightforward. Noctis wanted to know what was for dinner and he used the nickname Specs all the time. His heart shouldn’t pound and it shouldn’t have been a struggle to say casually. 

 

Ignis met his eyes and a flicker of something (Hurt? Understanding? Gratefulness?)  passed between them before he casually answered with words Noctis didn’t hear. 

 

Soulmarks _were_ a crock of shit. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> One more thing, let me know what and who you want to see. It won't change the plot and eventual (secret for now) endgames, but I want to/want the boys (and the girls when they appear) to muse over how they relate to and what future they may or may not have with a lot of different viable options, so I want to be reminded of ones I may not have thought on enough yet myself, such as...idk...how Gladio might react to Aranea in this au if she casually says she trusts him when he asks her to go along with a battle strategy. Make sense?


End file.
